Abstract

This blog examines NEET critically, focusing on the constitutional and socio-legal issues it raises. It argues that although NEET was set up as a centralised mechanism to promote fairness, merit-based decision-making, and the standardisation of educational performance to establish merit for medical students, it actually serves to reinforce previously established inequalities in both society and structure rather than remove them. Drawing on the Constitution of India, relevant Articles, and case law (such as Indra Sawhney v. Union of India and State of Kerala v. N.M. Thomas), the blog seeks to understand how formal equality and substantive justice conflict in Indian constitutional law.  The blog also discusses how the Tamil Nadu state government has opposed NEET as part of its Dravidian social justice model and as a result of its redistributive educational policy. Finally, the blog critiques the Supreme Court’s arguments in Christian Medical College Vellore Association v. Union of India, concluding that by supporting standardisation, the court favoured centralisation and technocratic governance over regional autonomy and structural redistribution. Ultimately, this blog concludes that the language of merit holds little meaning because it fails to account for the existing caste, class, linguistic, and economic hierarchies within education law.

I. Introduction: Law, Merit, and Educational Power

NEET is a centralised exam designed to make sure applicants have the same chance of being accepted into medical schools in India. This exam was created to prevent corruption from happening when students want to get accepted into a medical program and give everybody an equal opportunity for admission into a medical college in India, since they all qualify through this system. The courts have upheld this as maintaining “uniform standards of education”.However, the concept used to justify NEET hides an underlying constitutional dispute about who gains an advantage from the way the law defines merit.

Within Tamil Nadu, the disagreement regarding NEET has increased, if measured in terms of the historically established pattern of a welfare approach to education through the use of educational reservations. University admissions were based on social justice-based systems implemented by the Dravidian Movement, instead of competition based on examinations taken at the secondary school level. 

The Supreme Court of India had a major impact by allowing all of India to utilise the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for university admissions. According to the Supreme Court, NEET is for the purpose of improving transparency and providing access to high-quality educational institutions. This was confirmed earlier by the Supreme Court concerning the issue of NEET in the case of Modern Dental College and Research Centre v. State of Madhya Pradesh (2016) and was subsequently reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in the matter of Christian Medical College Vellore Association v. Union of India. However, it demonstrates a greater preference for formal equality and central regulation than for structural redistribution and regional self-determination and for other forms of distribution from a Critical Legal Studies standpoint.

• Merit standardisation and structural inequality in NEET

The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) examination assumes that a national examination will create a fair and merit-based system. In contrast, the suggests that merit and equality develop based on the existing hierarchies of caste, class, language, and economic status within society. This implies that students in India do not compete on a level playing field and thus do not start from equal positions when competing for admission to medical institutions.

There are stark disparities in the two main factors mentioned below:

1. Access to quality schools and English-language instruction,
2. Digital resources, urban education, and decent coaching services

These disparities arising from this inequality are of constitutional importance under Article 14 (equality before the law) and under Articles 15 (4) and 15 (5), affording that entitlement to affirmative measures designed to assist socially or educationally backward classes. Indian constitutional jurisprudence has always supported the concept of substantive equality rather than formal equality, in the cases of State of Kerala v N.M. In Thomas and Indra Sawhney v Union of India, the Supreme Court acknowledged that equal treatment of persons in disparate social situations.

• Coaching economies, linguistic bars and the Tamil Nadu debate

NEET continues to require formal standardisation and thus applies the same treatment to every student, regardless of their educational background. Using CLS theory, structural inequalities resulting from social barriers are then converted into structural inequalities resulting from the application of Neet. The creation of coaching centre economies amplifies the problem of access to educational opportunities. As NEET success increasingly relies on access to expensive private coaching centres as well as on academic ability, access to educational opportunities becomes synonymous with access to an educational market.

The neoliberal discourse on merit and achievement further masks this economic reality by framing all educational outcomes solely as the result of effort. The issues faced by the Tamil Nadu students who have been educated under the State Board system are very serious because of the perception that NEET discriminates against them based on their educational history. It is believed that NEET promotes a curriculum based on what’s taught at CBSE schools, using English as its medium of instruction, and therefore ignores the State Board system. In this way, “uniformity” is used to create distinct social environments within which laws apply.

II. Judicial Reasoning and Constitutional Indeterminacy

• Centralisation vs. institutional autonomy

The NEET case also provides an example of Critical Legal Studies’ central thesis of the indeterminacy of legal reasoning. Authors working in this tradition have suggested that courts do not always determine judicial outcomes solely based on objective legal doctrine; rather, they often evaluate competing constitutional principles through an ideological lens that conceals the ideological underpinnings from the judiciary’s interpretative neutrality.

The Supreme Court, in the Christian Medical College Vellore Association v. Union of India decision, ruled NEET constitutional based upon transparency, limiting commercialisation, and promoting educational excellence; therefore, they relied upon Entry 66 of List I of the Seventh Schedule to the Indian Constitution, which grants the Indian Parliament the authority to set standards and coordinate higher education. However, entry 25 of List III (regarding the states and the federal government’s autonomy to independently establish their respective licensing programs), Article 19(1) (g) (regarding institutional autonomy in administering educational institutions), and Articles 14 and 15 (regarding substantive equality) were also important in determining the outcome of the NEET controversy.

Additionally, the judgment handed down by Altamas Kabir in the case of Christian Medical College Vellore Association Vs Union Of India can be relied upon to strike down the medical council of India’s NEET framework as unconstitutional, with the Supreme Court held that the NEET framework violates articles 19(1)(g), 25, 26, 29(1) and 30(1) of the constitution, which are respectively the infringement of the autonomy, rights to practice profession and right to establish and administer an educational institution, of all private, religious and unassisted minority institutions.

• Substantive justice and politics of merit

In previous cases such as the T.M.A. Pai Foundation v. State of Karnataka and the P.A. Inamdar v. State of Maharashtra, the courts recognised institutional autonomy in educational administration. Nonetheless, in the name of transparency and national standards, the courts are increasingly favouring regulatory centralisation. This is an example of how, through a CLS lens, the Courts emphasise certain constitutional values over others, and the decisions then appear as a matter of law. This emphasis on uniformity and consistency over regional autonomy or social redistribution was, in part, ideological.

The Court’s reasoning also demonstrates the tension between formal and substantive equality. In terms of formal equality, the standard for all candidates is the same (examination) regardless of circumstances. Substantive equality acknowledges that an individual’s inability to participate as equals because of the same treatment in an unequal situation is taken to imply that they are being excluded from being able to participate equally through the same educational policies as others. Historically, education policy has been more oriented towards achieving substantive equality in Tamil Nadu than formal equality, as the aim has been to address inequality based on region and caste.

III. Tamil Nadu, Social Justice, and the Limits of Legal Neutrality

• Dravidian social justice and the constitutional vision of education

Understanding Tamil Nadu’s opposition to NEET requires careful consideration of its heritage of anti-caste activism and its redistributive constitution. It has been established through the influence of the Dravidian Movement and the ideals of Periyar E.V. Ramasamy that the state of Tamil Nadu perceives education not solely as a means of providing an opportunity for individual academic achievement (competition), but also as a vehicle for achieving social equality (social transformation). The constitutional underpinnings of these educational policies have been derived from both provisions for equal treatment and from Article 46, which mandates that the State provide for the educational and economic advancement of its weaker members. Tamil Nadu’s system of reservation and educational admissions reflects the State’s commitment to distributive justice.

• Standardisation, structural exclusion and the politics of merit

In contrast, NEET is indicative of a transition to a technocratic and centralised approach to government. The concepts of standardisation and efficiency are being employed in ways that mask the inequality and the inequitable distributional impact of Standardised Testing. The current increase in student suicide and increased psychological stress and exile of rural youth highlight why standardised testing is creating an inordinate amount of stress for socially vulnerable groups of individuals.

The controversy also reveals larger tensions within post-colonial constitutionalism. CLS theorists contend that when universal legal systems are used in deeply unequal societies, they often recreate disadvantage and domination. As such, the so-called neutral national examination in India may only serve to reproduce existing social hierarchies rather than eliminate them. While CLS does not outright reject standardisation or regulation, it asks: from whose perspective are standards defined, whose perspective is used to create legal norms, and whose interests does the system ultimately protect? The NEET debate illustrates that educational law is bound up with larger issues of caste, class, language, and economic power.

Conclusion

The NEET controversy indicates the dual role of law as regulator and as a locus of struggle for power, ideology and constitutional meaning. Legal institutions frequently legitimise structural inequalities through rhetoric of meritocracy, accountability and uniformity while conveying an image of objectivity and impartiality in their operations.

The 2019 Supreme Court rulings on NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test) demonstrate that the courts are generally favouring formal equality achieved through central governance and uniformity at the expense of context-sensitive understandings of social justice. This trend began with the 2013 majority decision that initially struck down NEET as being ultra vires.

The challenges presented by Tamil Nadu’s resistance to NEET raise a constitutional challenge to the assumption that uniform standards produce equitable outcomes. Applied through the lens of the Critical Legal Studies movement, NEET reveals that the abstract concept of meritocracy cannot operate fairly within a highly uneven social order. For a constitutionally democratic society that is committed to transformative justice to be realised, it must strive to address the structural realities that shape who has access to educational opportunities, as opposed to simply implementing a rule of equality that is formally identical. If this is not done, then inequality will continue to be reproduced through equality.